The East Play-In Regulars (Raptors, Hawks, Heat, Bulls) all regressed to the mean after hot starts

With RJ and Poeltl out they just have no depth to make up for it. Some of them are also sick right now, looked very lethargic yesterday. No excuses tho. They weren’t as good as they started, and they aren’t as bad as they appear right now. We’ll see.

Well obviously. The Raptors are just clearly not a 60 win team, so it makes sense they cooled down dramatically.

They need RJ back badly him and a big man

Thats the ebbs and flows of middling teams based on strength of schedule and injuries.

For The Raps, they have very consistently been bad without a healthy Poeltl.

It also turns out the Raps have no one that replaces RJs driving ability.

Yes, easy schedule and small sample size. People were also calling for All Star and potential All NBA for Reaves around then.

Last few games have been bad losses too.

Been within 6 points of the Nets/Wizards going into the 4th, lose by 15+ in both games.

They’re a 6-7 seed with the ceiling of being a 3 seed. The injuries to the starters are really exposing the holes in the roster. Honestly though, before the season started, my hope was a play in spot, so I’m pretty happy so far.

Our SG and Centre depth are being hugely exposed with RJ and Poeltl out. Great teams have role players popping off; but we are not so lucky currently. Makes for easy game plans when you really only have to worry about BI and Barnes 😅

Interesting because you thought we were a 60 win team? 🤣

The Raptors are not as good as that 14-5 start,  nor are they as bad as their record since. They are somewhere in between. The only certain thing about them is that they cannot stay the course when not fully healthy. 

Used to the pain of rooting for Toronto teams for them to let me down after the first 20 games lmaooo

RJ merchants

This is the way seasons go. Teams don’t know their bad until about 20 games in. The raps were in rebuilding mode so above 500 is fantastic. Fans need to chill

If only looking at the last 6 games played: Wizards is undeniably better than the Thunder

12-5 with RJ

I’ll say it again, but Scottie Barnes deserves some of the ire that Paolo is drawing.

He’s max contract player that doesn’t have the propensity to take over games when his team needs him.

This happens every year. One or two teams massively over perform for the first 20 games. They will end up around .500 and win a play in game against the heat

The starters are good but no superstar that can pick up the load when there’s injury

No center and not enough rim pressure

That OT loss to the Hornets crushed the team’s vibe.

What’s up with Sct Brn? I thought he was finally making a semi-leap this year?

start the tank

Raptors had an easy ass schedule lol people shit talk OKC’s schedule but Rap’s schedule was not much harder.

Ya we suck

They are the most fragile team in the league

I don’t think any rational Raps fans watched our games and actually thought we could maintain a 14-5 pace. This team is not well-constructed, and we are NOT a team that is a Kawhi-esque player away from contention. This is a mid team that will finish with a mid record and bow out early. I honestly feel like we’re directionless right now, and we just lost to the fucking Wizards lol

Raptors tanked back to back years just to get back to where they were lol

*insert Thanos meme

Their starting lineup is a bunch of third options and their bench ain’t nothing to talk about either. Like, I’m not sure a single player there is better than AG. There’s a bunch of these teams where they try to contend like that and after 5-10 years of play-in contention and perhaps a miracle CF run they realise they’ve wasted 10 years for absolutely nothing.

The Raptors made their splash trade for the 2025 version of DeMar DeRozan who plays 55 games/year on average.

They are a mid roster, very clearly locked into the play-in.

Toronto fans would deride anyone saying too early, small sample size 😂